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You should compare recurring cost with other recurring costs. Otherwise, it will always seem expensive, because you can multiply an arbitrary period of time to

You should compare recurring cost with other recurring costs. Otherwise, it will always seem expensive, because you can multiply an arbitrary period of time to the price. After inspecting my own personal finance, I’ve found that my spent on software subscription is less than 1% of my yearly spent. So, I’ve stopped worrying about it quietly accumulate. Not yet worth optimizing.

wink 6y ago
Yes, I'm comparing it to the price of a vserver/cloud instance running cronjobs or webhooks. That's what all technical people I know use ifttt for. And usually a 3$ one can run hundreds of these sort of automations, unless you're relying on some of these ifttt-ingrained applets. And before anyone draws the "this takes longer"/labor costs cards.. I only started posting my blog post blurbs to Twitter/Fediverse via cronjob because the ifttt-rss-to-twitter thing was broken at some point.
- powersnail 6y ago
  I agree that in the case of IFTTT, the price doesn’t seem to worth it.
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
> Otherwise, it will always seem expensive, because you can multiply an arbitrary period of time to the price. I would frame that the other way—it seems expensive because it is expensive, if you look at the long-term cost. And if you don’t look at the long-term cost, you’re fooling yourself. You’re right that choosing one year as the time unit is arbitrary, but I actually think it’s an overly-generous choice, because as I mentioned, when I buy non-subscription software I almost always expect to use it for longer than a single year. I’m increasingly viewing subscriptions as a cheap ploy to trick consumers into paying more. “Oh, that iPhone doesn’t cost hundreds of dollars, it’s just $20 a month for two years. You can pay $20, right?” What bothers me most about the scheme is it appears to be shockingly effective. This is literally grade-school arithmetic!
- powersnail 6y ago
  I’m not suggesting to look at the unit price, either. It’s not about whether it’s one year or one month. I’m suggesting to put it in the context of other recurring expenses, to get a real sense of how much it affect your finance. A recurring expense has a different impact on your finance than a one-time expense, so it should be evaluated as such. In fact, $100000 dollar upfront is less affordable than $5000 for 20 months, due to the nature of income and expenses.

wink 6y ago

Yes, I'm comparing it to the price of a vserver/cloud instance running cronjobs or webhooks. That's what all technical people I know use ifttt for. And usually a 3$ one can run hundreds of these sort of automations, unless you're relying on some of these ifttt-ingrained applets. And before anyone draws the "this takes longer"/labor costs cards.. I only started posting my blog post blurbs to Twitter/Fediverse via cronjob because the ifttt-rss-to-twitter thing was broken at some point.

powersnail 6y ago
I agree that in the case of IFTTT, the price doesn’t seem to worth it.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

> Otherwise, it will always seem expensive, because you can multiply an arbitrary period of time to the price. I would frame that the other way—it seems expensive because it is expensive, if you look at the long-term cost. And if you don’t look at the long-term cost, you’re fooling yourself. You’re right that choosing one year as the time unit is arbitrary, but I actually think it’s an overly-generous choice, because as I mentioned, when I buy non-subscription software I almost always expect to use it for longer than a single year. I’m increasingly viewing subscriptions as a cheap ploy to trick consumers into paying more. “Oh, that iPhone doesn’t cost hundreds of dollars, it’s just $20 a month for two years. You can pay $20, right?” What bothers me most about the scheme is it appears to be shockingly effective. This is literally grade-school arithmetic!

powersnail 6y ago
I’m not suggesting to look at the unit price, either. It’s not about whether it’s one year or one month. I’m suggesting to put it in the context of other recurring expenses, to get a real sense of how much it affect your finance. A recurring expense has a different impact on your finance than a one-time expense, so it should be evaluated as such. In fact, $100000 dollar upfront is less affordable than $5000 for 20 months, due to the nature of income and expenses.